Dominicans won in five sets,
Cubans and Puerto Ricans are
also unbeaten in Colombia
CARTAGENA, Colombia, July 25,
2006.- Dominican Republic, Cuba
and Puerto Rico are undefeated
after two days of pool play in
the men’s volleyball event at
the Central American and
Caribbean Games.
While the Dominicans had to
battle for five-sets to keep
their unbeaten record, Cubans
and Puerto Ricans had easy
matches in their pool matches.
Dominican Republic is 2-0 in
Pool A following its five-set
triumph over Mexico with the
combined titanic effort of Elvis
Contreras and Jose Caceres who
each scored 25 points.
“Our game at the net has been
good but we have had some
problems with our reception that
we need to improve,” said
Dominican coach Julio Frias
after the win by score of 25-21,
21-25, 25-21, 22-25, 15-13.
“We knew about the resources of
our opponent so we just came
prepared to play with a big
level of concentration,” he
added.
Mexican Ivan Contreras led all
the scorers with 29 points,
Gustavo Meyer had 12 and Jose
Martell and Juan Garcia chipped
in 11 and 10 respectively.
Also in Pool A, the powerful
team of Cuba crushed Trinidad &
Tobago 3-0 (25-9, 25-11 y
25-14). Tomas Aldazabal with 10
points was the best Cuban
scorer. Oriol Camejo had eight
and Michael Sanchez and
Roberlandy Simon each had 7.
Nolan Tash led Trinidad & Tobago
with 8 points.
Despite the victory, Cuban
captain Pavel Pimienta said that
“we need to improve in every
aspect of our game and we hope
that will come out starting
tomorrow in our match against
Dominican Republic.”
“In the second phase, when the
level increases, our team will
be playing the kind of
volleyball we want to,” he
added.
Puerto Rico defeated Barbados
3-0 and improved its record to
2-0 in Pool B. The score was
25-15, 27-25, 25-18.
The Puerto Ricans moved
constantly their bench and faced
a tough resistance from the
Bajans in the second set.
“Today we were a little bit
below, maybe because of the hard
match we had last night against
Venezuela,” said setter Angel
Perez. “We need to improve our
serves.”
Once again Hector Soto was the
top Puerto Rican attacker with
15 points, and René Esteves and
Victor Rivera added 8 and 7
respectively. Elwyn Oxley was
the best of Barbados with 9
points.
In the last match of the night,
Venezuela beat Colombia 3-1 and
now both teams are tied with 1-1
record in Pool B. The score was
25-22, 20-25, 25-13, 25-23.
Tomas Ereu was the offensive
leader of Venezuela with 17
points, followed by Carlos
Tejeda with 14, Luis Diaz with
11 and Ivan Marquez and Freddy
Cedeno each with 10.
Colombian Liberman Agamez had 22
points and Jaime Viafara added
11. |